He put his arm around her, whispering into her ear. He had changed from his hunter outfit into another dark suit, designer armor back in place. Yet his calloused touch told a different story of a previous life hardened through labor. “You look beautiful.”
“I look like I’m about to flash everyone in this borrowed top.” Red glanced at his fingers running down her bare upper arm. The strange euphoria from his blood had worn off, but her skin began to tingle again. Red bit her lip. This wasn’t the place for an acid-style flashback.
Cavernous, packed, and lit like a photographer’s dark room, the Fine Line stretched into the gloom. Demon shadows, swift and unfettered by the Dark Veil, danced on the curved walls. Techno violins echoed from the speakers. A bat darted to a platform hanging from the ceiling. The creature transformed into a pink-haired black man. Walking on the ceiling, two vampires dropped down to join him. Wallcrawlers.
Red pressed herself closer to Kristoff instinctively. She tried to pull back when she caught herself.
Tightening his arm around her, he brushed hair off her neck to reveal his mark. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”
“This is some club.” Red tried to keep her heartbeat even. Vampires, even in neutral sanctuaries, dialed back their abilities. Besides a fight, she had never seen them relaxed enough to move so quickly.
She wasn’t the only human. Other faces flush with life peeked from the dance floor. Their limbs too slow to keep up with the vampiric spectacle. The claimed humans were a blended crowd. Red had expected more stereotypical bleeders. Only one woman in black leather and platform boots walked on a leash behind a pale shirtless vampire.
Performing a joking samba, a cute Indian guy still in his office khakis twirled a middle-aged vampire in a pink sari nearby.
Her fangs popped out as she giggled.
Red thought she spotted Trey, Donal’s claimed human, passing the BDSM duo and disappearing into the dancers. Red hoped his friend Ophelia hadn’t decided to join him. The humans weren’t all on leashes, but she recognized the watchful glint in the Indian vampire’s eyes.
Arms crossed over her sari, the vampire hissed at another who lingered too close to her human.
Gulping, Red hurried to keep up with Kristoff.
Pristinely tailored in a black blazer and red V-neck shirt, Kristoff strode like a king through the crowd. It parted for him. He led her to a bar, roughly poured out of concrete and decorated with broken black tile.
“Greetings, Mr. Ambassador. I remember your order.” The bartender poured and mixed between three carafes of blood heating on hot plates. He placed the full wine glass on the counter. “For your companion?” He pointedly did not look at Red.
“Surprise her with a pinot grigio.” Kristoff traced his fingers around the mark on her neck.
Eyelids lowering, Red bit her lip at the sensation. They should have set up more ground rules about touching. She forced herself to lift her chin, trying to act casual.
“Gianni wants my money for more than a drink.” Lips nearly brushing her ear, Kristoff whispered after the bartender turned away his cash. “Hopefully he won’t surprise us with a boring business meeting.”
“I don’t know. This place looks lively.”
Taking their drinks, they walked along the edges of the dance floor.
“How long do you think it will take our friends to crash the party?” Red asked. The only thing that Cora had managed to get out of Sal was what they already knew. Sal had had his feet put to the flames before. He wouldn’t tell them anything until he wanted to. For now, their evidence only had scattered sightings, cryptic social media posts, and a growing body count. She needed a break in this case.
“The party hasn’t even started,” Kristoff pulled his arm from her shoulders and faced her. He raised his glass, gesturing the rim at her. “You owe me small talk. Skipped out on it at the Halloween Ball.”
Red cringed, gulping her wine. “Why don’t we get heavy about reincarnation?”
“No. Light and breezy. I want to know about you,” he said cheerfully.
“Didn’t your research come up with enough?”
“It didn’t tell me what you like,” Kristoff replied smoothly. “What you don’t. How you spend your time.”
Red wagged a finger at him. She wasn’t falling for his attempts at banter. This was a cover, not a date. “You’re thinking date ideas.”
“I already have those.” Kristoff grinned as he rocked on his heels, hands in his pockets. Neck lowered, he met her eyes. “Fine. What’s something I wouldn’t expect about you?”
“What are you playing at?” Red crossed an arm around her bare waist. The corset top hugged her chest too tight for a moment. She sipped her wine, trying not to think about how bitter it seemed compared to the wine she had drank in Kristoff’s office. I’m a sick puppy. “You’re being all charming. That’s not why we’re here.”
“I’m blending in,” he said innocuously.
Red lifted an eyebrow. “You’re plotting something.”
“Wooing, really.” Kristoff shrugged before flashing a grin. “You like me a bit, admit it.”
“You know who I’m with.” Red looked away, the words whispered.
Chin snapping up as if punched, he clenched his jaw. “You know who he is with right now.”
Red swallowed a lump of uncertainty, marinated in fear and a dash of jealousy. “You don’t have to sound so happy to get a dig in.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean— This isn’t about him.“ Kristoff sighed, dipping his head. Searching for the words, he put his hand on her cheek. “You are a gorgeous redhead with a mean right hook who likes Tolkien. I’d want your number even if you weren’t you.”
“You don’t even know me.” She told herself that she didn’t pull away in order to keep up her act as a claimed human.
“But I’m trying.” Kristoff caressed the apple of her cheek. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
It did, but Red still didn’t know for what. Too slowly, she shied away from him. His touch lingered like a brand on her skin. She slid her foot back to step away.
A polite cough announced a black-suited vampire who had the air of a beleaguered manager. “Excuse me, Ambassador. I have a special gift for you from Mr. Gianni.” The bald man gestured toward a nearby sitting area, raised a step off the ground and roped off with velvet. Iron wrought furniture and important looking vampires clustered on it.
“A special gift,” Kristoff repeated dryly as he put his arm around Red.
“Wow-ee.” Buttoning up the rest of her sarcastic response, Red followed the club employee with Kristoff to a tall round table beyond the velvet rope. The gift was a roughly welded tray holding four cube-shaped shot glasses. She wrinkled her nose. If it wasn’t for the blood, it would have looked like a beer flight from a hipster brewery.
The Fine Line’s answer to a maître d’ opened his mouth to intone about the offering.
Kristoff put his hand up, tone curt. “You don’t need to read me the menu. I’ll guess.”
The bald vampire bowed. He darted away to another table to continue his round of fluffing up the high rolling club patrons on the low platform.
Taking in the scene, Red leaned against the small circular tabletop. The exclusive area was barely separated from the dance floor. It didn’t look like these vampires were necessarily masters, but they had money. Mink stoles, leather pants, luxurious satins wrapped around immortals of all shapes and hues.
“You always find the VIP area,” she said.
“This is a crass upsell. It’s premium merely due to being six inches off the ground.” Kristoff shook his head. “I should try it in my clubs.”
“Always looking for that next hustle?”
“When you start out on the bottom, its instinctive.”
“That’s where you met Nedda, huh? When she said you were promoted with her…?” She didn’t know the politest way to ask if they had been murdered together. “I assume, given the big hate-on th
at you have for your sires.”
“We were turned on the same night, but the hate comes from a different place. Nedda used to worship Delilah. I always thought Lucas was a dick.”
Standing up straighter, Red barely heard his jab at Lucas when she spotted who was in the premium section with them.
Silver sparkled in the corner. Sancha swept her long chestnut brown hair over her shoulder. Resplendent sequins danced in a cascade of short fringe on her minidress. The Queen of the Prairie Dead stood alone at her high table. She clutched her small purse. Her caramel eyes scanned the club until falling on Red and narrowing.
“What? Too harsh on my sire?” Kristoff asked, drolly.
Red elbowed Kristoff. “No, look. Sancha.”
An easy smile stretching across his face, Kristoff gestured to the club agent before whispering into his ear.
The bald vampire nodded before taking away the tray of blood shots.
Red tried to sound normal even as her eyes pleaded for him to bail out of whatever power flex he was cooking up. “Not hungry?”
“Not for that.” Kristoff stared at Sancha. He inclined his head gravely to the other vampire when the tray appeared at her table.
Red inched closer, muttering to him. “What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory.” He rested his hand on her lower back.
Sancha waved away the gift. She stomped over to them instead. The eyes of the nearby vampires followed her. She stopped before them. Her eyes flicked away from Red in dismissal to focus on Kristoff. Hands on her hips, she shook her head. “You send me scraps like a dog.”
“That was a token of friendship. I haven’t seen you in a century, Sancha.” Kristoff leaned forward, voice low. “It’s been a pleasure watching your rise—from one black sheep to another.”
Sancha glowered at him. “Keep your tokens. They’ve only caused me bad luck.”
“They cleared your way.” Kristoff’s lips curved into a facsimile of a smile that would have chilled the devil. “You got what you asked for.”
“Don’t you dare!” Mouth contorted in hard lines, Sancha backed away from him. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“You wanted one less rival.” Kristoff retorted before he gestured grandly to her. “And now, look at you. You’re a queen.”
Lifting her head, Sancha tossed her mane over her shoulder. “Remember that fact when you speak to me.” She stalked away and stepped off the low platform to the dance floor.
A polite smile rusting on her face for their observers, Red snapped her head to Kristoff. Leaning closer, she brushed up against him to hiss, “What the fuck was that?”
“Tell you on the way.” Kristoff snuck a quick kiss on her knuckles before entwining their fingers.
“Enough with that.” Flushing, ears growing hot, Red took a step toward the platform step. A tingle sparked between them. From his weird blood and certainly for no other reason, she decided firmly. Her fingers loosely intertwined with Kristoff’s, she moved to disengage until she noticed the curious glances from the other tables.
Human in one hand and his drink in the other, Kristoff followed after Sancha, weaving through the revelers at a casual pace to avoid suspicion.
“We lost her.” Red scanned the long chamber. Pulsing music matched her heartbeat. The line of dancers blocked the telltale metallic shimmer of Sancha’s dress. She released his hand as she whispered to him. “You dealt out some cryptic barbs. Care to share with the class? Was that about Halloween?”
“No, that was an older skeleton in her closet.” Kristoff pulled her closer, wrapping her under his arm to muffle his voice from the other supernaturals. The music helped, but it was hard to have a private chat around vampires. He guided her toward a wall away from the throng. “When Michel lost Paris, you know what we did to Penelope. Guess who unwittingly gave us the intel to break the siege?”
“Shit.” Red muttered. Michel had grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory on Halloween when he had tried to get Red to bring back his long dead love, Penelope. She hadn’t consciously made the connection that if Sancha was Michel’s childe, Penelope was her blood sister. “Does she know you…?”
“She wanted her sister out of the way. Didn’t like how I did it in the end.” Kristoff let go of Red. His shoulders hunched uncharacteristically, as he faced her.
Red didn’t know what to say to that.
Kristoff and Lucas drained Penelope. Drinking another vampire’s blood was forbidden. But the old Alaric Order reveled in depravity, notorious even among the undead. It was the abomination that had fueled Michel’s century-long vendetta, starting with murdering members of the order, then plotting a very special revenge for Kristoff and Lucas. Kristoff had left the order soon after to join Alzbeta’s clan, but Red could tell that even a century had not dimmed his memories of what the historians called the Last Bloodline War.
She looked away as she tried to collect her thoughts.
Yellowed eyes shined in anticipation from the crowd. A middle-aged balding vampire in a frumpy brown suit raised his face. Sniffing, he hissed, fangs out. The horde stilled their gyrating. A hush grew under the pumping music.
“Kristoff…?” Red had the wild urge for a flamethrower as she watched the change in the crowd. “What’s going on?”
Chapter Eighteen
January 27th, After Midnight, The Fine Line, Koreatown, Los Angeles, California
The music cut out. Cheers echoed in the long subterranean club. Wall-crawling vampires dropped to the floor and joined the throng. Somewhere, Sancha lurked, pissed off by Kristoff and probably watching them. Cora had sent them to the Fine Line to find out who the Burrowers were meeting from the Dague. Red had the idea that they had already found out.
Red inched closer to Kristoff. If this club turned into a blood bath, her only hope was to run faster than any other human there.
The MC boomed out of the speakers. “It’s the last Sunday of the month! You know what that means at the Fine Line—BLOOD TOAST SUNDAYS!”
Kristoff stiffened and reached for her hand. “I thought it was karaoke night.”
Sucking in a startled gasp, Red scanned the dance floor to see the vampires pulling their humans closer. Fear set off a torrent of chemical reactions inside her from shortened breath to goosebumps. The energy wafting off the club felt like sharks circling as the chum was tossed overboard.
It didn’t happen in a wave. The vampires struck in sync. Hair raising sounds of feeding had replaced the music. The Indian man in business casual she had seen earlier sighed happily into the pink sari as he sunk into his vampire lover’s arms. Another human whimpered as her wrists were bitten into by two vampires. In the distance, a blond man hung limp in a brunette’s embrace before the crowd shifted to hide the pair.
Red squinted to see the brunette better. Was it Sancha? Before she could blink, she was moving. Pressed against the wall, arms above her head, a steel grip held her wrists. She gasped. Her thoughts hadn’t caught up to her motion.
Kristoff pressed closer, legs against hers. He put a finger to his lip, silently biding her quiet before he leaned in. “I’m supposed to bite you now.”
“You know what would happen if you did.” Red glared, swallowing back her fear. The seconds elongated as they took the measure of each other. His grip on her wrists radiated through her raised arms.
Kristoff tipped his glass on her neck.
A threat died on her lips as lukewarm liquid poured on her neck. The sudden wetness scrambled her thoughts. Grimacing as it dripped into her bodice, Red lifted her chin to show him she wasn’t impressed. All it did was bring their faces closer together. Breath catching, she shook her head to clear it. “That blood could have hepatitis!”
“This is the part where I’m supposed to bite you.” Smirking, Kristoff set the glass on a small table next to them before adjusting his hold on her. “Unless you changed your mind about that, we’ll have to blend in somehow.”
“LA’s hottest vampire party is just getting
started!“ Cracking over the loudspeaker, the master of ceremonies hyped up the crowd from the DJ booth with shout outs and drink announcements. “We got B poz on tap, ya’ll! Blood Toast Sunday is where it’s at!”
“The blood is dripping down my side. Super gross, Novak.” Leaning her head back, Red rolled her eyes as the music came back on. When was this cheap club gimmick over? It was BYOB—bring your own bleeder. Vampire waiters dipped through the club with blood shots on a tray for the human-less. They acted more like the Jell-O shot girls in a tourist bar than the undead. She tried to make a joke but her voice shook at the end. “You made less of a mess when you actually bit me.”
Kristoff grinned, forehead nearly touching hers, to whisper over the bloodlust-powered bass pumping between their close bodies. Gentle, his big hand covered her wrists above her head. “You sound a little breathless. How often do you think about my bite?”
Red nibbled on her lip. The hunter side of her brain told her what to do with an unsouled vampire this close- knee him in the groin and run. The rest of her couldn’t think. Her position forced her chest into an arch, brushing his. She was uncomfortably aware of how supportive the corset was to her bust line. “I don’t.”
Kristoff whispered into her neck. “Really?”
Flushing, Red shook her head. The lie stuck in her throat even if she couldn’t control her body’s other responses. “Enough flirting.”
“I thought we were supposed to be honest with each other. Or was the honesty rule just for me?”
“Fine,” she snapped, looking down, her voice turned confessional. “I have thought about it.”
“If you wanted…” Kristoff murmured against his mark before he pulled back to stare into her eyes. His lip quirked up, knowingly. “No one would ever have to know. It would stay between me and you.”
Red felt too aware of his body against hers. His bite had been seared into her memory. That strange throbbing pleasure had overwhelmed her even if it had only lasted seconds. Forcing her gaze away, she cursed her pale skin that snitched whenever she blushed. “I’m not begging.”
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